Left 4 Dead 2: It could have been one of 2010’s best games.

While I didn’t sign a petition trying to block its release, I was a bit disarmed by the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2.  The original is not even a year old, has a massive fan following, and even after you earn all the achievements it has infinite re-playability thanks to its always-changing difficulty dynamics and the mere fact that SHOOTING ZOMBIES IN THE FACE NEVER GETS OLD.

With that being said, it’s no surprise that there is a sequel.  This is how video games work, after all, and anybody that has played video games with any degree of passion in the last thirty years knows that.  Developers make a great game and publishers make a whole lot of money off of it.  Developers, being the artsy folks they are, see room for improvement in their art even after its sold a million copies.  Publishers, more than willing to capitalize on brand recognition, generously fund developers’ efforts to improve the original in the form of a sequel, so that the publisher can make even more money off of it than they did the original.

The thing that bothers me about Left 4 Dead 2 is not its existence, but its timing.  I never feared a Madden-esque franchise exploitation; Valve treats their fans better than that.  I didn’t think, however, that it was fair to push a sequel to such an excellent game so soon, simply because there wasn’t many improvements that could be made to the established material.  Valve could have sat on it for a year and spat it out next Christmas, when interest in Left 4 Dead may have started slipping.  As for implementing the new features introduced in the sequel via downloadable content–well, I’m not programmer, so I’m not sure how difficult that would have been for some of the deep-seeded changes to the core game engine (such as melee weapons, new items, and–especially–new Special Infected).   So again, a sequel was inevitable; just released too soon.

Of course it’s on my wish list at Amazon.com for this holiday season.

The demo is out now for Xbox Live Gold subscribers (and all Steam users), so we finally get to see if this sequel is worth being rushed out the gate.  I have to say it would have served better being released next year, when the new ideas would have seemed even more fresh and original–and Valve could have taken the time to better implement them.

There are many things I like about the sequel, namely the characters and setting.  Bill, Francis, Zoey, and Louis are now iconic characters that will forever be associated with the undead apocalypse, and I love them just as much as I did the very first time I booted up the game.  But Ellis (my personal favorite), Coach, Nick, and Rochelle feel better developed and more human; they seem weaker, more helpless, which in this kind of game is a good thing for the narrative.  Let’s be honest: Francis and Bill could have probably split up and handled the zombie apocalypse solo.  You get that sense from their personalities.  The four leads from L4D2 seem to really depend on each other; any one of them would die alone, but together they keep each other alive.

The zombies are also more complex.  The standard Infected are more varied in their design, with some of them being former police officers and thus wearing body armor.  Spitters present a real challenge; they function like Boomers, except they spew venomous bile on the ground that saps your health.  Jockeys are similar to Hunters, except they don’t pin your character; instead, they ride you, similar to their namesake, taking you all over the place.

The setting is much more rich than in the original.  It’s no longer “typical American city and the surrounding community;” this is the South we’re talking about.  Cheap lawn chairs and fences, lots of greenery, wide open streets, and the chirping of cicadas and the buzz of mosquitoes pervade the two chapters that comprise this demo.  Somehow, Valve even nailed the humidity of New Orleans; you get the sense that the air is thick and heavy (the daytime setting probably helps).  In hindsight, the backdrop of the original game was just a placeholder; this is a real place with real personality.

Even the music is better.  The bluegrass interpretation of the music that plays when you die is more sorrowful than in the first game, and the jazz riff that plays to herald the arrival of the Horde is–oddly–more menacing than the B-movie fanfare from the first game.

Unfortunately, where it matters the most–game play–the sequel is a bit more weak.  Yes, new Special Infected present new challenges, but they are blatant variations on the existing characters; they don’t really feel new.  Melee weapons are a huge disappointment.  Yes, they offer one hit kills and a valuable way to conserve ammo, and they are fun to use, but one has to be in melee range of a zombie to use them, meaning you’ll be charging towards them instead of hanging back and suppressing them–this leads to lots of deaths (believe me).  What’s more, the melee weapon replaces your pistol; better functionality would have it replacing your melee attack (you press the left trigger and, instead of a jab with the butt of your gun, you perform a swipe with your melee weapon, just like how melee attacks work in Modern Warfare).  This would have made much more sense and expanded combat options much more, giving you a fallback option when you are swarmed but not forcing you to take risks to use your new toys.  The new guns are a lot of fun to play with, but there’s not enough new ones–and not enough variation amongst them–to feel like a big change to game play.

There is also one glaring problem with the demo.  When I played single player, it ran flawlessly.  When a friend asked me to join him for multiplayer, it lagged like a three-legged dog.  We couldn’t enjoy the game because everything jerked and sputtered and chugged along.  We would empty whole clips into regular Infected and they would stand there wailing on us, and then all of a sudden there we are: on our backs with pistols in the air and a perfect circle of Infected all around us.  We finally decided to quit and hope for the best upon full release; there was no way we were going to enjoy playing like this.

So, judging from the demo, will Left 4 Dead 2 be fun to play?  Yes, it will be.  The new characters and setting add a few extra layers and some very delicious icing to an already delicious cake.  The action is just as fast and frantic as ever, and popping zombies upside the head with a frying pan feels as awesome as it sounds.  Is it worth the $60 price tag?  Yes, it is.  This is a full retail release; it is not an expansion.  It has a wealth of additional play modes not found in the original, a brand new campaign, and changes to how the core game is played.  Was it released too soon, so soon that it will feel like an expansion despite being a totally new entity, spawned from something already in exsitence but with an identity all of its own?  Yes, it was.

Batman: Arkham Asylum–Best Comic Book Game EVER

The demo for what may be the most anticipated game this year that isn’t called Modern Warfare 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, has finally hit both PSN and Xbox Live.  Download now–right now–and play it, because it is incredibly awesome. 

Much like The Dark Knight really felt like a Jeph Loeb Batman story sublimated to film, this game really feels like the developers went for the comic book feel first, and then fleshed out the game play elements around it.  Of course, their “fleshing out” amounted to a fluid, intuitive combat system that (even in the short demo) evolves into almost puzzle-based encounters once the enemies get ahold of guns.  Unfortunately, experiencing Batman-as-detective–something that Eidos and Warner Bros. have been quite enthusiastic about in their attempts to point out that this game is not a brawler by any means–is not something in the demo, but Batman is a fighter; a smart, tactical, precise fighter.  That element of his character comes across without a hitch.  His combos are not the big, loopy, “RAWR ME AWESOME!!!” viking-on-crack ‘roid rages of God of War and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  He fights with quick punches, going for big moves only when the opponent is dazed.  Counters are bone-crushing without being theatrical, and takedown moves look like they really hurt–but also look like I, with enough training, could totally pull them off.  Those of you who were fearful of another God of War or Devil May Cry rip-off need not worry.  Combat in Arkham Asylum has more in common with Metal Gear Solid 3 than Ninja Gaiden 2.

Purists may gripe with some of the character design, but much like Batman wears black in the movies because it looks better than navy-and-gray tights, the newly-imagined characters work.  Bane and Killer Croc are more terrifying than ever, all ripping muscles and grotesques posture, and Harley Quinn will make those sad and lonely goth boys drool even more heavily, all dressed up in her nurse’s uniform.  I’m more of a Poison Ivy man myself, and yes–she looks equally seductive (if the character whom I think is Poison Ivy from the attached trailer is indeed, Poison Ivy).

I’ve never been more excited for a game after playing a demo than for Batman: Arkham Asylum.  August 25th cannot come soon enough, and as long as the game keeps delivering moments like the fight with Dr. Zsaz it will be a real thrill ride for Batman fans. 

And how did the fight with Dr. Zsaz go?  Simple: move in the shadows around the ceiling, sneak behind him, glide from a post above his head, kick in the back of the skull, and then pounce on him with a single hard punch to the jaw.  Quick, clean, brutal: just like Batman.  I have a feeling we’ll be hearing those words a good number of times as people talk about this game.

Resident Evil 5 demo is awesomely underwhelming

I played Capcom’s demo for the highly anticipated Resident Evil 5.

Hey Capcom, there’s this new thing: it’s called dual analog control.  It lets gamers have their player-characters do really cool things, like move and shoot at the same time.  If you’re going to make a game that focuses on balls-out action, then you might want to set up the game mechanics for such a thing.

I’ve always enjoyed the Resident Evil games.  The first RE was one of the most-played games of my teens.  It captured my imagination and was my first real introduction to the horror genre in that I became interested in the tropes and conventions that inspired the game.  RE2 and RE3 were great games in their own right, but they abandoned the atmosphere and tone that made the first game so intriguing, trading scares for explosions and survival for action-heroism; what’s more, the traditional RE controls are not anywhere near appropriate for twitch combat.

RE4 finally hit a sweet spot of action and horror.  Sure, Leon Kennedy had a few moments composed entirely of implausible awesomenosity, but all-in-all the controls were revamped to accommodate the gun-slinging that Capcom seemed to want to cram down our throats and the game still had some legitimately tense, thrilling moments.  Plus, the spooky village and its crazed inhabitants more than made up for the lack of zombies.

RE5, so far, is a return to the summer-Hollywood-blockbuster goodness that was RE2 and 3–plus Chris Redfield has to stand perfectly still to aim and fire his weapons.  You think that would have been a design flaw of RE4 that was corrected, since it was so freakin’ obvious.  But no: you’ve got to plant your feet to shoot.  You’re a highly-trained police officer with a military background, but you can’t shoot on the run.

I hope the total package makes up for this (which I doubt will be fixed before the release) with the rest of the game, and I hope the tone of the inaugural entry is revisited (though I doubt that: in the demo alone there is enough ammo to stock a small paramilitary force, and illogically long streams of enemies).

Lord of the Rings and Skateboarding: two great tastes that…well, read on

I gave the respective demos for Lord of the Rings: Conquest and Skate 2 a spin.

Lord of the Rings: Conquest sounded fun.  I was never a big fan of the Star Wars: Battlefront series, but Lord of the Rings, one would think, lends itself to the “big epic battle played from the perspective of a grunt” genre better than Star Wars.  I imagine Star Wars working out better as an RTS title (again, one would think: shame that nobody has quite gotten that right) because it’s all about big vehicles and long distance firefights.  Or maybe a squad-shooter (such as the underrated Star Wars: Republic Commando for the original Xbox).  When it comes to down and dirty melee combat surrounded by enemies, well: it’s Tolkien’s world.

I didn’t bother with the online portion of the demo, but I did give the offline demo (the training level, and that’s it) a couple of playthroughs.  You get to play as each class and one hero: Isildur.  If you know anything about Tolkien’s world, you’ll know that the demo level takes places at the end of the Second Age, as the Last Alliance takes on Sauron’s forces.

I have to say that playing as an archer is pretty fun.  Rapid-firing arrows, kicking orcs that get too close in the face, sniping away at far-off enemies: being able to do all this makes up for the ho-hum obligatory run as the warrior (spoiler alert: he uses a big sword and moves slowly).  Not to mention the archer can set his arrows on fire for bigger damage, apply poison to them for a slowdown effect, or fire a multi-shot that spreads out to kill at least three enemies.  Yes, the archer is awesome: just as an elfish archer should be.

Playing as the rogue scout is pretty fun as well.  Being able to turn invisible and back-stab enemies is more enjoyable than it should be; the satchel bomb works as crowd control; his combos are easier and quicker than the warrior’s attacks.  It does seem pretty pointless, though, in a game focused on big epic battles where you are in the thick of things, to play a stealthy character; maybe there is some use in the full campaign for this guy.

The mage, though: oh the mage!  He’s a little thing called ultimate power.  Lightning arcs, crowd-clearing shockwaves, the ability to heal–and then you get to play as Isildur, a warrior with flashier special moves.  Again, ho-hum.

Wired didn’t give this game a good review, so I doubt I’ll be buying it.  I have to agree with their reviewer: I don’t see the point of playing as any class but the mage, since the mage is so awesome.  You can’t be evil in the demo, but I have no desire to be.  Given that Tolkien frowned on people using the One Ring as decoration (it was an object of evil after all), I’m sure he’s rolling over in his grave about gamers being able to slaughter hobbits as the Dark Lord Himself.  So there you have it: I won’t be getting the game, but the demo was a fun diversion.

The same can be said for Skate 2.  I had never played Skate, so this was my first experience with the analog system the game uses to execute tricks.  It was fun and–I daresay—intuitive, but I found myself struggling to do a decent line.  A trick here and there was fun, but trying to string together a combo was a pain.  Perhaps somebody more agile than I can get into this–my little bro loved it–but I’ll stick to my buttons thank you.  I do applaud the developers for going into the dreaded “new and different” territory though, even if it didn’t work for me.

And tell me: do skaters really talk like that?  Seriously, it’s like listening to the bastard child of a wannabe hip-hop superstar and a frat boy that surfs on the weekends.  “Yo dawg, you totally banged that line yo dawg yo!  That was hizzy to the wizzy with a tight YEAH!  It was that zeitgeist yo, it was that zeitgeist you know what I’m saying!  Off the HIZZ-OW!”

I’m pretty sure that’s an actual line from the game.

Early Thoughts on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (X-Box 360)

Lucasarts released the demo for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed last week.  Considering that this is one of fall’s most anticipated releases, I’m sure that it will see a good deal of traffic; I wouldn’t be surprised if pulled a Too Human and made the X-Box Live top ten.

For those not in the know, The Force Unleashed is set in between the last film of the prequel trilogy and the first Star Wars movie (does anybody even care about where things fit in the Star Wars canon anymore?) and features, as the player-character, an apprentice that Darth Vader kept secret from the Emperor; this apprentice handled Vader’s dirty work, eliminating the last few Jedi that escaped Order 66 in Revenge of the Sith.

The focus of the game is on using the Force as a weapon.  This is a departure from past Star Wars games wherein the Force was a supplemental weapon (and sometimes, not a weapon at all, but more of a defensive tool).  Vader’s apprentice can send out a concentrated blast of energy, lift objects and enemies and throw them through the air, gain a burst of speed, hurl his saber at distant foes, and create lightning.  All of the awesome things the Jedi and Sith did in the movie are now at your command.  Plus, if I’m reading the subtitles correct, he has the most awesome codename ever: Starkiller.

I played the demo, and as excited about the game to begin with I’m even more excited now.  The game uses the Havok physics engine, and it makes for some beautiful game play.  Watching bodies rag-doll through the air and slam into heavy structures or go flying off into the void is supremely satisfying, and as you experiment with the various Force powers it only gets sweeter.  Starkiller is not limited to what he can lift, as I found out when I sent a TIE fighter zipping towards a squad of stormtroopers; that made for a glorious, screen-filling explosion.

Combat is kept fresh by not only what Starkiller can send flying at his enemies (indeed, where he can send hs enemies flying), but his melee options as well.  While the Force powers are the star of the show, your character still has plenty of lightsaber combos that are silky-smooth in their responsiveness and empowering in their display.  Whether charging his lightsaber with lightning, impaling an airborne enemy on his blade, or–my personal favorite–severing a stormtrooper’s spine with a cruel, hard-hitting finishing move, Starkiller fights like the force of evil he is supposed to be.

The only problem I ran into was the game’s targeting system.  It’s sometimes hard to pinpoint exactly what you want to use your Force powers on.  However, there is a target lock button one can make use of; it’s just getting your target lined up that can cause some stress.

The graphics look great and–as always with the Star Wars games–the music and sound are superb.  Everything has a watery flow to it.  It’s just too bad that the demo was so short (in fact, it has taken me longer to write this than it did to play through the demo).  It definitely left me wanting more.  I can’t wait to get my hands on it when it’s released in just over two weeks.